Banded Brian

It's something to get you to practice good habits. Gets you out of the habit of drinking with your meals. Trust me. You will be happy you waited in the end. If you always drink with your meals you will end up eating more and not even notice. Causing slower weight loss. It might seem silly at first but if you go awhile without drinking with your meals and then go awhile drinking with your meals you will tell the difference

Tums are a life saver! My doctor told me to really avoid pills because I have to chew the pills in order for them to pass through the band and some pills are meant to be slowly released. When you chew it up it can mess up the stomach. In some cases causing stomach cancer. I take liquid pain meds. (kids stuff). P.S. Aleve burns soooooooo bad!!! Never chew those

If you eat...and drink while you are eating or you eat and then right after drink it will wash it down faster than if your stomach worked it down on its own. If you eat and drink you will be able to eat more because you are just pushing the food through. Turning it into a soup pretty much. Causing you to overeat

My doctor always tells me to take it slow for the first day or two. Eat creamy soups and mushy foods because when the band it adjusted the stomach swells a little from irritation and it might make food hard to pass through. You might noticed it is extremely tight when you wakeup but around dinner time it is a whole lot more comfortable. Sometimes when I wakeup mine feels so tight that my stomach hurts until I drink some fluids or eat some oatmeal or something mushy. I have the hiccups a lot also and most cases I get them when I didn't even eat anything. Give it a day or so and if it's still occurring you might have to have a small unfill. Sometimes it's so minimal like .01 or .02. That's like a couple drops but your stomach will be able to tell the difference when you eat

My body changes my mind for me. Lol if I go a whole day eating a bunch of junk that's not good for me and then the next day I eat the correct portions and watch the kinds of foods I eat I get a bad migraine headache and no matter what I take for it I will have that migraine the whole day. Kind of like a punishment. After that I won't have any kind of headaches for months. It only happens when I overeat and eat the wrong kind of foods so I keep that to a minimum cause that day of pain just ain't worth it to me

2 hours is a long time to wait. My doctor told me 45 to an hour. I carry a water bottle around with me. Sip all day. Some days I get tired of drinking water though

I don't count calories. The key is to stop at the first sign the band is trying to "restrict" you. I noticed I can eat 2-3 bites of whatever I want and the band makes me feel satisfied but if I drink fluids while I eat or just eat heavy foods (foods that weigh more) like breads. The weight of the bread will push anything down the band and overeating occurs. So I try to pay attention and not drink while I'm eating and even if I put more food on my plate than I can eat I know I don't have to finish it just because it's there. I either throw it away or put it in the microwave for later. I do a lot of exercise like a maniac though but that's just because I'm 26 years old and I wanna have the 6 pack abs and look a certain way and I don't want loose skin. I know there is some extra skin that's probably gonna have to be removed but if I do my part it won't be much. I started at 321 pounds. Got down to 188 pounds within a year. Went to the united kingdom for a month and ate every type of food I couldn't here in America and came back home 247 pounds. Now I'm back down to 219 and my goal is 175. I'm 6ft tall. I was so close to my goal but it shows that this is a lifestyle change. Not a quick fix. I think of my band as my little helper buddy

I had this same thing happen to me...my doctor told me that anytime something gets stuck in the band your stomachs natural reaction is to swell up around the obstruction. So even after the piece of celery that was stuck in my band came unstuck my stomach was still swollen and took about a week to go down. I had to go for an unfill to be able to tolerate food again. You will notice your stomach is still swollen from you not feeling hunger. Your stomach won't growl or anything but once the swelling goes down you will start to feel that hunger come back again